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Wireless prices to plummet as Linksys hits Europe hard

When Linksys told its American retail outlets that home networking was going to be "the big thing" they didn't believe it. A year later, and it's the fastest-selling range in stores in the US - but there's a problem in getting the UK into a similar position - broadband

They're calling it the "Big Bang" at Linksys; they're arriving in Europe withwireless networking products which dominate the American market for home users, and they're promising a huge rush of new equipment, too. But can they sell wireless LAN products to a market which is pathetically under-supplied with broadband users?

Mike Wagner, marketing director, Linksys, reckons that the market in the UK will take off - but until someone does something about broadband, he says, it's going to be limited.

Linksys isn't just offering a wireless access point, and a couple of cards for notebooks; it's going for the home networking market with everything from home gateways to network extenders. There are plans for a wireless hub that uses ISDN - for those rural people who can't get broadband yet. There are plans for directional antennae and booster antennae, for people with long gardens or a pub at the end of the road. And the prices are coming down.

"We're virtually a startup in the UK," said Wagner, "having only just got into this market this year, with a deal with BT Openworld. But we're now going to hit retail; we have deals with Dixons, PC World, SCS Maplin, Staples and Inmac, also Dabs, and Amazon, and a few others, including BT OpenWorld. We have ADSL Resource for e-commerce, and BTOpenworld and another broadband provider selling bundled deals, just due to announce."

All Linksys products will, shortly, be dual-standard, working on both IEEE wireless standards, 802.11b and 11a as well. But that won't apply in the UK until the regulations are changed; so in the meantime, the main focus will be price.

For example, if you want to link a Playstation to an XBox for head-to-head gaming, a WET11 wireless Ethernet bridge will do it for £119. It's a useful box; it can put wired products onto the LAN, or extend the LAN across the road without wires, too. The same price will buy you a simple DSL router plus wireless access point, the BEFW11S4 access point router, with four ethernet sockets. Then again, if you need an all-dancing broadband wireless system, the BEFDSR41W gives ADSL modem, firewall, and a four-port wired Ethernet switch for £159, and turns into a wireless access point too, when you plug in the WPC11 wireless access card, for £60 odd.

The real problem facing Linksys in the UK, Wagner admits, is the indifference of resellers. A quick look at his current set of distributors shows that few of them have anything like the full range of products on show, and that they are distinctly luke-warm about the prospect of selling more.

Wagner believes this will change. "We had the greatest difficulty talking PC World into letting us do an in-store demonstration of our products," he admitted, "but we did get a trial in the Stevenage branch. As a direct result of the four-fold increase in sales which we got for them, they are now going to do similar promotions in over a hundred stores, including Dixons stores."

Linksys remains a private company - but not a small one; this year, it expects its turnover to reach $450 million, and has seen six quarters of growth at a time when the electronics business generally has been collapsing. Setting up in six European countries is the sort of thing that would frighten Wall Street, of course - but Linksys isn't beholden to Wall Street, and can carry on going for the growth it believes is just around the corner in European markets.